Law and Faith

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! (Romans 6:14-15 ESV)

Most of the formative years of my Christian walk were spent in one church from February 1987 through February 2000. During that time we had three pastors. I was in some form of teaching for most of that time. One of the things that always came up when we studied the Old Testament was Romans 6:14-15. It was as if someone always had to make sure that we were not being legalistic. They cast the law as far from them and our church as the East is from the West. Is that how we are to treat God’s Law?

In Romans 6:14-15 we learn that Christians are not under law, but, instead, are under grace. What does this really mean? Does it mean that it is wrong to preach God’s Law under all circumstances?

Or do you not know, brothers–for I am speaking to those who know the law–that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:1-6 ESV)

Paul wrote this section of Romans to Jews for they ‘know the law.’ He states that the law is binding on a person only as long as he or she lives. Paul uses the example of a married woman. She is legally bound to her husband only as long as he lives. However, if the husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. On the other hand, if her husband is alive then she would be judged an adulteress if she lives with another man. She may remarry if her husband dies. What has this to do with the relationship of the law with Christians? Paul used this as an analogy to show that when a person becomes a Christian, he or she actually dies and is resurrected or reborn. They have died to the law through the body of Christ. Now instead of being bound to the law, they are bound to their Saviour. Before this first resurrection each of us were living in the flesh and controlled by our sinful passions, which, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. However, this resurrection unto life has released us from the law because we have died to that which held us captive. In other words, the law can no longer condemn a believer.

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. (Romans 7:7-13 ESV)

Does the fact that the law no longer condemns believers mean that we should treat it as worthless or unimportant? I have received some rebuke from some ’emergent’ types for teaching from the Old Testament to Christians. Are they right to say that I am teaching from the irrelevant ‘Old Covenant?’ Paul very clearly teaches us here that the law is a vital component in God’s work in saving His people. It is the law that convicts both unbelievers and believers alike of sin. Unbelievers learn what sin is through the law. The law is not sin. Apart from the law, sin lies dead. Paul says that before he knew the law he was once alive apart from it. However, after he learned what it was to covet and that that was sin, then he found that sin very much alive within himself. Sin deceived him and brought him to condemnation because he was now guilty before the law for covetousness. The law is good and holy so it was not what caused Paul to be spiritually dead. No, sin did that. It was the law that revealed it. This brings conviction.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:14-25 ESV)

The law teaches and convicts, but cannot deliver a believer from sin. All of us can relate to Paul’s struggle that he shared in this passage. The law teaches us about what is good and right and what sin is, but is powerless to deliver us into a state where victory may be realized. A believer cannot rely on knowing what sin is in order to repent. Our minds and hearts may very well be delivered from the penalty of sin, but our flesh is not part of that package. We know Jesus and He knows us, but our flesh just wants to be satiated by ‘experience’ of some sort. We desperately want to be obedient to the law of God in our minds, but our flesh still serves the law of sin. So, what is the solution? How can we fulfill the law in our minds and hearts and how we walk before the face of God?

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4 ESV)

The only way a Christian can walk in victory is to deny the flesh and walk according to the Spirit. Oh, we are very capable of doing the former and still do much more than any of us really want. However, as we mature as Christians we learn that role of the law and how we are new creations unto faith not unto legalism. What does it mean to walk according to the Spirit?

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!– assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:17-32 ESV)

Take this practical counsel by the Apostle Paul, meditate on it, and apply it, especially vv20-24, which is below.

But that is not the way you learned Christ!– assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:20-24 ESV)

How do we put off our old self and then put on the new self. We do this by being renewed in the spirit of our minds. What does that mean? The Greek word translated as ‘renewed’ here is ἀνανεόω or ananēoō. It means to be made young through some process of renovation. It is related to another Greek word, ἀνακαίνωσις or anakainōsis. It has essentially the same meaning. We find it in one of my favorite passages, translated as ‘renewal.’

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2 ESV)

Therefore, what do we learn? The way to walk according the spirit is to put Romans 12:1-2 into practice as the root center of our lives. We present our bodies as living sacrifices to God as acts of worship by His grace. This is self-denial empowered by Him. As we do this we will also cease being conformed to this world. We will not be worldly any longer. We will become spiritually minded, God focused, and obedient in how we walk through each day. We do this through the process of mind renewal. There is that word, ἀνακαίνωσις.

If we are having a sin problem, an obedience problem, that is keeping us in anguish and defeat then the solution is not to exercise will power to try to stop. No, that will only lead to temporary victory and make us miserable as we fail and fail. No the solution is to renovate our minds. This renewal of our minds transforms us into Christians who walk in victory and self-denial. We must ask ourselves what this renewal of our minds is. It is actually the remaking of our minds into a new form. How do we do it?

The renewal of our minds is the Holy Spirit’s work as He changes our thinking through our consistent study and meditation on Scripture (Psalm 119:11; cf. Philippians 4:8; Colossians 1:28; 3:10, 16). The renewed mind is one that is saturated with and controlled by God’s Word. This is why it is imperative to never neglect Sacred Scripture. Get into your Bible, ask God to teach and change you. Mediate on these wonderful passages such as Romans 12:1-2. Ask God to change you according to His truth. Then as you walk through each day, do so in self-denial in the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, do not focus on self, but on others and God.

The law of the Lord is what converted my soul.As a believer I always use the moral law to show the person I am speaking with the real reason people end up in Hell.Not that they don’t ‘believe’ in Jesus are they condemned,rather because they are transgressors of God’s moral law, workers of lawlessness.Because they don’t see their sin as all that serious they as a result never take the Savior or His amazing grace very serious.Wonderl article and solidly Biblical!

The best analogy that I have heard about the law came from a commentary. The author states that the law acts like a mirror to show us that our faces are dirty. But the law cannot cleanse us. Nobody would take the mirror off of the wall and wash his/her face with it. Instead, the blood of Christ acts like soap which has the power to wash the dirt away.

Could you imagine looking at yourself in a mirror and then taking it off of the wall and washing your face with it? It wouldn’t work too well………….. Kind of silly

I completely agree with your post. The fact that the Gospel message and Christs’ atoning sacrifice on the cross and Gods law so completely demonstrates Total Depravity says as Christians we can and NEED to develop a manner of living that requires rigorous honesty about ourselves. Thats what the law and the Gospel message does for us. It helps us have a starting point of being honest about ourselves.

Personally, I see lots of Christians digging into scripture. I see far fewer developing this lifestyle of rigorous honesty. Changes is good as long as it does not affect me. Its easy to sit in my perfect internet view of the world and criticizie everything out there but never internallize scripture to myself.

Lord,

help me see my shortcomings! Have Mercy on me! Strengthen my faith. Only You can do it!

In the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen

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The Purpose of Possessing the Treasure is to be spiritual food for the suffering Church

Therefore, I urge you brothers through the compassions of God to present your bodies as living, holy sacrifices, well pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service. And do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may discern the will of God, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. (Colossians 1:24-26 ESV)

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The way of escape

"To believe that He will preserve us is, indeed, a means of preservation. God will certainly preserve us, and make a way of escape for us out of the temptation, should we fall. We are to pray for what God has already promised. Our requests are to be regulated by His promises and commands. Faith embraces the promises and so finds relief." - John Owen

How to be free from bondage to our flesh and temptation

"If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation. Let this be one aspect of our daily intercession: 'God, preserve my soul, and keep my heart and all its ways so that I will not be entangled.' When this is true in our lives, a passing temptation will not overcome us. We will remain free while others lie in bondage." - John Owen

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About me

My name is Mike Ratliff. I am a δοῦλος (slave) of the Κύριον ᾿Ιησοῦν Χριστόν (Lord Jesus Christ.) I have been a Bible teacher since the late 1980's. I am currently learning Koine Greek, which I began in 1992 and will continue to do so until the Lord takes me home. I am Reformed in my theology because I recognize that God is Sovereign over all things. I write these posts as God directs. I am also part of the discernment team at Christian Research Network.

OTHERS MAY, YOU CANNOT

by G. D. Watson

If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16:24-25

If God has called you to be truly like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you such demands of obedience that you will not be allowed to follow other Christians. In many ways, He seems to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

Others who seem to be very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and scheme to carry out their plans, but you cannot. If you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others can brag about themselves, their work, their successes, their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. If you begin to do so, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may supply you only on a day-to-day basis, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, a helpless dependence on Him and His unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward while keeping you hidden in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.

God may let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit, but He will make you work and toil without knowing how much you are doing. Then, to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done; this to teach you the message of the Cross, humility, and something of the value of being cloaked with His nature.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, and with a jealous love rebuke you for careless words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and that He may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.

God will take you at your word. If you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you cannot. Settle it forever; you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes in ways which others are not dealt with. However, know this great secret of the Kingdom: When you are so completely possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven, the high calling of God.